The Translators

The Translators

Gord Rollo

Published by Ashbury Creek Media, 2016.

Table of Contents

Copyright

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Also by Gord Rollo

The Jigsaw Man

Strange Magic

Valley of the Scarecrow

The Translators

Crowley’s Window

The Dark Side of Heaven

Peeler

Gods & Monsters Vol. 1

Time & Space Vol. 2

Flesh & Blood Vol. 3

Copyright © 2016 by Gord Rollo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance it bears to reality is entirely coincidental.

Published by Ashbury Creek Media

Ontario, Canada

Book & Cover Design by Adam Geen

www.adamgeen.com

Cover by bunniesandsheep.deviantart.com

Source Images from www.sxc.hu, resurgere.deviantart.com, and

onyx-eye.deviantart.com

1

WASHINGTON, D.C., USA

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013, 8:45 P.M.

17 HOURS BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD

Outside, it was bedlam.

The survivors screamed. The city burned.

It was quieter within apartment 1705 of Sterling Tower on 9th Street North, but no less chaotic. In the cluttered living room, two people were lying on the bare mattress of a pull out couch: a young man, an old woman — both on their backs, eyes open wide, silently staring at the mildew-stained ceiling. Only one of them was alive. For a moment neither moved, neither breathed, and at a glance it was impossible to tell the living from the recent dead, but the need for oxygen ended the ruse, eventually forcing the man to sit up and swallow a mouthful of stale, smoke-filled air.

John Taylor, a man who desperately wanted to die.

It wasn’t fair. He’d been drinking tequila for hours, washing down twice as many Clonazepam sedative pills as the dead woman beside him probably had, but still he lived on — drunk, nauseous, splitting headache, blurry vision speckled with tiny white spots, but alive all the same. At 5’8" tall and only 150 pounds, the drugs and booze should have taken their toll, but obviously suicide wasn’t as easy as he’d thought.

Not that he’d thought of suicide much, mind you. Never in fact, and had someone told him a week ago — hell, even as recent as a day ago — that his life would have spiraled down into this nightmare he found himself in, he’d have laughed and told them to screw off and leave him alone. Suicide wasn’t an option. Taking one’s own life was a fool’s game. Something reserved for the weak, the pathetic, the broken people of the world whose minds were obviously more fragile than all the normal people out there walking around who struggled and fought the good fight each and every day, no matter how bad things might get. John knew better now. He’d learned his lesson the hard way. Suicide wasn’t for the weak; it was for the hopeless.

And tonight, apparently, only for the lucky.

Feeling sluggish, top-heavy, as if carrying a fifty-pound weight strapped to his shoulders, John struggled to his feet. His legs had the strength of broken rubber bands, and on his first step they gave out, sending him sprawling forward to crash onto a scarred-up wooden coffee table. Made of solid oak, it easily withstood the weight of his small body. Head spinning, John knew he should get up, get out of the apartment, but decided he’d rather stay right there, collapsed in that spot until death came walking through the door to claim him. It was as good a spot to die as any.

Come outside, a male voice whispered. It was coming from inside his head; yet another in the long line of phantoms who’d occupied his mind since he was a boy – Translators, he’d always called them. The doctors used another name, a medical term to describe the voices: Schizophrenia. Maybe it was neither; maybe this time it was full-blown madness, his mind so filled with terrible information it had finally decided to shut down and stop dealing with the wickedness of reality.

After all, who could blame him?

Come out here, the voice urged again, louder this time.

John ignored it. Started to at least, but then another idea occurred to him, one too perfect to disregard. Come outside and play? Why the hell not? Sounded like a grand idea.

Back on his feet, John stumbled over to the television. There’d been nothing broadcast on any of the networks for days now and its screen was dark, busted, a gaping hole the size of a softball in the dead center of it. That was okay, he only wanted the half-filled bottle of cheap Tequila he’d left sitting on top, grabbing it and taking another large gulp on his way to the sliding glass patio door.

Before opening it, John paused long enough to be appalled at his nearly unrecognizable reflection in the glass. The man staring back at him had thinning grey hair — grey for God’s sake! He was only thirty-seven years old and less than a week ago his hair had been thick and black. He looked much older now. It wasn’t just the hair; it was everything — his gaunt face, his haunted brown eyes, his thin haggard body still wearing the same oversized blue Air Force jogging suit he’d worn for several days now. Even his slump-shouldered, despondent posture was unfamiliar, poles apart from the way the confident young man used to be.

John slid open the patio door, having seen enough. It didn’t matter what he looked like anymore, best to just forget about it and get on with things. It was already dark outside. The last hint of the sun just disappearing on the western horizon and he only had a moment to wonder if it would ever rise again before it winked out and was gone.

He missed it already.

The dying world spoke to him; more tortured whispers in the night calling him outside. Join us, they said. He was losing it big time but was still coherent enough to realize it; he just didn’t care anymore. He felt completely powerless to refuse. Compelled to obey.

Tequila bottle firmly in hand, John stepped out onto the balcony, the smooth tiled floor cold as ice beneath his bare feet. Sterling Towers was seven city blocks north of the famous grassy parkland known as the Mall, and from the balcony’s vantage point John could usually see the majestic dome of the Capitol to his left and the towering pinnacle of the Washington Monument on his right. The Capitol looked untouched, although shrouded in darkness for the first time in his memory, but John was shocked to discover the Monument was gone. Rioters, militants, terrorists, crazies — someone — had taken on the enormous task of either blowing it up, knocking it over, or in some other way crumbling it to the ground in the week he’d been gone. Unbelievable. More than anything else, that act convinced John the nation was in ruins and the world truly was coming to an end. He wondered if the White House still stood, or if the terrorist’s bomb or the arsonist’s match had found a way to bring down its hallowed walls as well. The thought made him shudder, and he was thankful he couldn’t see Pennsylvania Avenue from where he stood.

Leaning over the metal-strut railing he looked straight down seventeen floors to the numerous fires that raged on the street below. Some were big, others small — buildings, cars, garbage, people — the hungry flames not at all fussy what or who they consumed. It was almost beautiful from this height: pretty orange, yellow, and red hues like the twinkling lights on a distant Christmas tree.

A deafening rumble echoed in the night sky, John’s eyes searching the heavens as he took another pull from the bottle, frightened but at the same time awed by the strange flashing lights hidden within the dark swirling clouds. He wondered if there were still people out there naïve enough to think it was only thunder and lightning? Major league denial, of course, or perhaps it was just wishful thinking on their part? Desperate times called for desperate rationalization, right? Didn’t matter either way. You’d have to be feeble-minded or stark raving mad to not know the truth by now.

John certainly knew the truth. More than most, anyway. There just wasn’t anything he, or anyone else, could do about it. Except maybe get down on their knees and pray.

Or do what John had come out here to do.

If at first you don’t succeed… a young girl spoke softly in his mind, try, try again!

Climbing over the metal railing was harder than he’d expected, his legs rubbery again, fumbling and dropping the tequila bottle half way over. He listened for the sound of the glass shattering below, but amidst the chaotic howls from the hidden shapes above, the steadily building roar of the fires below, and the frantic screams of the dying everywhere, he heard nothing.

He thought that was a good sign. At least he wouldn’t be disturbing anyone tonight. With a smile on his face and utter despair in his heart, John closed his weary eyes, let go of the railing, and stepped off into space…

2

RIVERSIDE, NEW MEXICO, USA

JULY 15, 2011, 6:40 P.M.

26 MONTHS EARLIER

Ricky Myers had turned eighty-one years of age this past April and blessed as he was with relatively good health, he could still freely admit he’d become a grumpy old bastard somewhere along the line. Living in this part of the country his entire life, naturally he’d been interested in the whole Alien/UFO conspiracy phenomena but in the last ten or fifteen years his interest had spiraled into full blown obsession. It wasn’t something he was particularly proud of but neither was it something he chose to hide from anyone. It simply was what it was. He saw little green men everywhere he went, and was fully convinced the government had men in black suits following his every move if he dared to leave the seven acre Poultry Farm his father had left to him thirty years earlier. If people thought he was crazy as a bed bug, well tough-titty to them. He didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thought of him. If he wanted to believe there was life out there beyond the stars, what harm was there in that? People just needed to mind their own damn business and leave him alone.

Most of the residents of Riverside were perfectly content to do just that; to ignore the overweight old farmer every chance they got, even when he’d charge into Reinhold’s, the local pharmacy and undisputed gossip gathering center for this small town, raving about how several of his best chickens had been ‘Abducted’ sometime during the night. People just smiled, went on about their shopping, and let Ricky be Ricky, the harmless nutcase. Of course, this meant that Ricky didn’t have much of a social life to speak of and more often than not, he spent his days and nights alone out on the farm, lonely and miserable, with only the chickens and his imagination to keep him company. About the only excitement he could look forward to was his once a week bath night on Fridays, where he’d scrub his matted white hair, trim his tangled forest of a beard, and head into town for groceries and supplies for the farm.

There were very few things left in life that could put a smile on Ricky’s wrinkled face but an after dinner smoke out on his favorite lounge chair on the front porch was still one of them. Disregarding his doctor’s constant and increasingly dire warnings about giving up tobacco, there was nothing Ricky enjoyed more than plopping down on his big old butt with a fully packed pipe and just listening to the sound of the wind on a quiet summer night. He figured it was as close to Heaven as a cranky old coot like him was ever likely to get so to hell with Doc Peters, cancer, and everybody else who’d deny him this last small delight. If smoking was eventually going to kill him, so be it; at least he’d die happy.

It was beautiful out tonight. New Mexico summers can be horrendous; like living in a giant frying pan with the gas turned up to full blast, but when Ricky stepped out of the house the temperature had dropped a few precious degrees down into the 80’s and with a slight wind coming out of the North it was refreshingly cool. Cooler, at least. The sun was still riding high in the clear blue sky but it had clearly lost its momentum and was preparing to start its inevitable nose dive toward the western horizon. With any luck, the temperature would continue to drop as night approached, and maybe Ricky would get a decent night’s sleep for a change.

Ricky settled his considerable bulk into his reclining lounge chair and breathed a deep sigh of relief. It had been another long hot day on the farm and although he’d gotten a fair amount accomplished on the chicken wire fence he was mending, he was mighty glad to put his feet up and call it a day. Smiling happily, Ricky struck a match and was just taking his first few pulls on his pipe when he heard a strange high-pitched squeal breaking the calm silence of the evening.

The Hell is that? Ricky thought, looking left and right along the road that ran in front of his property but not seeing anything at all.

There were no cars, no people, no anything. And still the irritating noise grew louder. Confused, Ricky struggled back to his feet — no easy task in itself — and crossed the porch to the front steps. The sound was even louder now, coming closer, and the squeal was quickly becoming a piercing shriek that was hurting Ricky’s ears. What was going on? There was still no sign of traffic or commotion anywhere on the road or on his property. Could he be imagining this? He clapped his hands over his ears, shielding them from the racket and was just about to admit to himself that maybe he’d finally gone off his rocker when the object came hurling into view.

From somewhere high above, falling out of the clear blue sky and landing with a thunderous bang on the front grass was a huge flaming chunk of… well, something! Ricky had no idea what it was but it sure scared the crap out of him when it hit.

Aliens! Ricky shouted, his warped mind staying true to form as he tried to see through the thick cloud of dirt and smoke that poured off the fallen debris and blew straight onto his porch. The bastards have finally landed!

Ricky looked skyward to see if there were other flying saucers coming in for a landing, imagining an entire armada of shiny silver disks descending on his farm, but there was nothing but clear blue sky for as far as his eyes could see.

Rushing as fast as his tired old legs could carry him Ricky dashed back into the house and reappeared thirty-seconds later with his double-barreled shotgun he always kept fully loaded above the seldom used gas fireplace. Imagining himself to look like heroic Gene Barry in the 1953 classic movie War Of the Worlds but realistically knowing he looked far more like the fat old fool that he was, Ricky stumbled through the smoke toward the edge of the still smoldering crater on his lawn, his firearm leading the charge, ready to fire at the first sign of attack.

Having waited his entire life for this confrontation, he was more than a little disappointed to learn that Earth wasn’t under attack and there weren’t any little green men running around that he could try to blast some good ol’ American common sense into. Once the smoke cleared, all that Ricky found in the hole was a big hot mound of junk; a twisted clump of crushed metal, melted plastic, and tangled wires no bigger than a decent sized television or microwave oven. It definitely looked like some kind of destroyed machine but for the life of him, Ricky had no idea what it might be.

An Alien spaceship though, it obviously wasn’t.

Disappointed and confused as to what he’d just found, Ricky wiped the sweat out of his eyes and turned his gaze skyward again, wondering what in blazes had just happened and who he should tell about it. Surely somebody out there would want to know about this? At the very least, he wanted to bitch at someone for the mess this damn thing had made of his front lawn.

Unfortunately, as usual, there was no one around. His eyes returned to the mysterious pile of hot metal that had fallen from somewhere far above.

Well, I’ll be damned, Ricky said.

3

CASCADE MOUNTAIN RANGE, CALIFORNIA, USA

SEPTEMBER 3, 2012, 2:09 P.M.

Carl Edwards was fast asleep on the job when the first alarm sounded. He’d been snoring at his desk for hours already, since before noon, which was a rarity for the usually reliable young scientist. This was his first shift back in the office since his hectic weekend hiking and camping just south of here at Lassen Peak Volcanic Park in the Cascade Mountains and he was completely exhausted — mentally as well as physically. He’d gone to the National Park for a little rest and a few romantic days in the woods, but Jenna, his health conscious wife had a full scale assault on the mountain planned and Carl had lost count of how many miles of backwoods twisting trails they’d tackled. He loved his wife and knew the vigorous exercise wouldn’t kill him and could only do him good, but damn he’d been glad when the weekend was over and he’d gotten back to his quiet, unassuming job.

Carl was a tall and lanky, blue eyed, blonde haired twenty-eight year old California boy through and through and he’d grown up loving the relaxed pace of life out here on the West coast. In his opinion there was nothing needed done so important that it couldn’t be put off a day or two if the Sun was shining and the surf was up. He wasn’t lazy and didn’t mind working for a living, he just didn’t particularly enjoy working too hard. Up until today, he thought he’d found the perfect job.

This was his second full year as an employee at the secluded Hat Creek Observatory. Carl was a research scientist for a project known as the Allen Telescope Array, which was a series of giant antennas linked together used for cutting edge deep space radio astronomy research. The ATA was a joint effort between SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and the University of California, Berkeley, and it operated very much like SETI in that it conducted an ongoing search of the heavens for signs of intelligent life, but unlike its more famous southern partner that concentrated its search almost exclusively on incoming low frequency radio waves, the ATA used state of the art computerized systems to scan the skies for a full range of radio frequencies and patterns of light waves as well. The entire project was privately financed, with the majority of the funds graciously donated by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen. With his help, and the power of Microsoft’s technology behind it, the ATA was expanding SETI’s Project Phoenix exponentially and covering vast areas of uncharted space in record time. If ever life was to be found amongst the stars, surely it would be the ATA that would find it. Carl, despite his lack of general ambition, looked forward to being a part of that historic find.

Just not today.

Today he only wanted left alone. To sleep his shift away in peace and let the antennas and computer mainframes silently rattle on like they always did, supervised or not. Tomorrow he’d promise to give his full attention and effort to the job. Maybe even later on today. If only he could get just one more hour sleep. Preferably two.

The second alarm sounded, blasting Carl into an upright position with his eyes open wide but he still wasn’t fully awake. His heart was pumping a mile a minute within his chest but for a moment he had no idea what was going on.

What the hell’s making all that racket? he wondered, not even sure where he was for a second but then his eyes fell on the data racing across the multiple computer screens mounted on the wall across from him and he was on his feet instantly, bolting for the red phone on the far side of the room.

The phone he’d never had any reason to use before.

The phone nobody had ever used.

A third alarm sounded before he could get there, and then a fourth and fifth, the entire panel going haywire with flashing lights and warning signs. Long dormant printers started spewing out page after page of incoming data, and back-up hard drives kicked online to make sure everything was being recorded in triplicate.

Holy shit! was all Carl could think to say as he lifted the ‘EMERGENCY ONLY’ phone with a shaking hand and waited for someone to pick up on the other end. He wasn’t at all sure who was going to answer or what he was going to tell them once they did. Making contact with a short random stray radio wave from the cosmos was one thing, but this…

This was something entirely different.

4

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, USA

DECEMBER 21, 2012, 5:15 P.M.

Approximately 800,000 men, women, and children had gathered together in Central Park to watch the world die. Some had arrived as early as yesterday morning, turning this into a chilly camping event for the whole family, but most had waited until earlier today with more people streaming into the famous meeting place by the minute as the afternoon sun slowly began to slide to the West. It was unofficially the second biggest crowd to meet in the park behind the 1.5 million people who came out in support of Earth Day on April 22, 1990. Quite ironic to think that the first gathering had been to promote recycling and green living and celebrate all that was beautiful about Mother Earth whereas the people today had battled icy winds and a spattering of snow to stand vigil as the planet came to its prophesied doom. Well, truth be told, apart from the religious nutcases and the diehard anarchists only a small handful of the crowd were hoping it would actually happen; that the world was coming to a mysterious end.

The rest were simply there for the party.

This was New York, after all, and this wasn’t the first time the world had been earmarked for destruction. Not even close, actually. Ever since the dawn of civilization, some inspired soothsayer, divine prophet, or wishful thinker had predicted the end times and to a man they’d all been wrong. The sun had risen the following morning as it always had; the people of Earth safe and sound at least until the next great prediction. From Nostradamus to the Reverend Jim Jones to David Koresh to the Heaven’s Gate Cultists to the global Y2K scare there had been no end to the list of people confidently predicting the end of the world, but perhaps no charismatic individual or isolated fanatical group ever caught the world’s attention quite like the approach of December 21st, 2012.

On this date, the winter equinox, the Mayan civilization had earmarked for centuries as a day of great change. Their complex calendar had been counting down and this was the date it would finally hit zero, marking, some said, the end of the world. The superstitious prediction would have been much easier to disregard had it not been for the fact that modern day scientists were also predicting that on this date, the solar system would undergo an unprecedented alignment of the planets that some highly educated men and women believed might trigger a shifting of Earth’s gravitational poles causing cataclysmic disaster around the globe.

Or, it might not do anything at all.

Why the time of 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time was chosen for the appointed hour of destruction no one knew, but the crowds were whipping themselves into a frenzy as the hour approached. In other parts of the world there were similar gatherings going on, many of them of a much more somber and nervous nature but here in the Big Apple the booze was flowing and the street drugs of choice were being consumed openly and without shame. There was obviously a police presence, and a large one at that, but under orders to keep things as low key as possible they stood idly by and just watched the clocks counting down the minutes the same as everyone else was.

With five minutes to go and the sun gone from the evening sky, the party mood in the park began to dwindle down to quiet chatter. As much as everyone was putting on a show that they weren’t in the least bit worried about things, it was obvious that they were, the sense of potential doom covering the massive crowd like an icy blanket. It was a palpable fear, a contagious fear, and it passed from onlooker to onlooker like a ripple in the ocean until no one in the park dared make a loud noise. With all eyes on their watches or cell phone clocks, the last ten seconds ticked by excruciatingly slowly. 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…

6:00 p.m.

Everyone looked to the sky.

Everyone held their breath.

Nothing happened. Nothing at all. People in the crowd started to laugh and within a minute the party was back on, everyone present telling those around them they’d known nothing was going to happen all along. Hundreds of thousands of the gatherers packed up and headed home straight away, nothing of interest anymore keeping them there but many stayed and partied on well into the early hours of the next day, regardless of the chilly temperature. The police were forced to arrest about a hundred men and women who took the celebration too far but for the most part it ended up being